infonet-economy

Worldwide, people are gaining access to a formal bank account, which allows account-based instead of cash payments. Based on a novel randomized control trial, we document that the payment method is an important determinant of savings behavior. In rural India, we study the effect on savings of allocating identical weekly payments on a bank account (treated) or in cash (control). The...

Why give aid to resource-rich autocrats? We find that the interaction between natural resources and most forms of international aid results in enhanced political instability in most autocratic countries. Interestingly, some types of government aid (notably humanitarian aid) do not have this effect, indicating that the impact of aid varies with its form. Furthermore, we find that only...

Motivated by a set of stylized facts, we develop a model of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As;) to study foreign direct investment (FDI) in emerging markets. We compare acquisitions undertaken during financial crises – so called fire-sale FDI –with acquisitions made during non-crisis periods to examine whether the outcomes differ in the ways predicted by the model....

This paper evaluates different channels of oil price pass through into inflation for the countries Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia. We propose a methodology to disentangle the effects of different channels after an oil price shock hits international markets. We measure the relative importance of the two distinct channels through which oil price shocks are transmitted into inflation...

This paper aims to provide the first evidence concerning the relationship between time ans risk preferences and illegal migration in an African context. Based upon our theoretical model and using a unique data set on potential migrants collected in urban Senegal, we evaluate a measure of time and risk preferences through the individual's intertemporal discount rate and coefficient of...

In this paper, we have applied spectral and cross spectral analysis techniques as an alternative approach to characterize the Tunisian business cycle and measure the degree of its international synchronization. As a robustness check, we have applied these techniques to the industrial production (overall and manufacturing IPI) as well as two synthetic indexes: a dynamic factor and a...

This paper empirically investigates the determinants of current accounts for a sample of 11 Central and East European Countries outside the Euro area. To this end we rely on the estimation of a panel VAR model with fixed effects over the period Q1 2005 to Q42014. Consistent with existing literature, we show that domestic GDP, the fiscal deficit, and the real effective exchange rate...

How does the market for corporate control reallocate firm ownership in response to adverse aggregate financial shocks? To answer this question, we develop a tractable model of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) where firms facing different degrees of financial constraints acquire ownership of illiquid domestic firms. We show that acquisitions by financially constrained acquirers, on...